The last couple of days, especially today, have given me some unexpected, wonderful sightings, some of which were birds. On June 5, although it was raining steadily I decided to go out and drive around the Potter Marsh area. Birding was average, with the highlight being my first view of the year of a very small baby moose in the wooded hills above Potter Marsh. Unfortunately the baby scampered off into the woods without allowing me to photograph it and I just got a partial view of the mama.

It was interesting to note that the single Trumpeter Swan is still at the marsh.

Today I decided to go to Kincaid park, a place that I usually don’t go because I don’t really know my way around it and it is huge. It was a beautiful cool morning.

The first excitement there (and another “awwww” moment) was another wobbly baby moose and its mother, which stayed along the roadside on the way into the park, allowing me to take zillions of photos and a video:

After I felt glutted with moose-photos I drove on and parked in the lot at the end of the road. I began to walk down the ski-trail, but then turned around to get something out of my car and noticed a bird I had missed near the parking lot, a large raptor perched on a dead branch on a hill beyond the lot. It was a juvenile-plumaged Northern Goshawk, which I photographed then as it perched and as it flew off to hunt.

Much later as I returned to my car I saw the Goshawk again, still hunting. It flew past and landed quite near me allowing even closer photos.

The other new year-bird was a very brief view of a calling Western Wood-Pewee. I also heard an Alder Flycatcher on my walk, and most of the usual summering warblers: Yellow-rumped, Orange-crowned, Yellow and Wilson’s, as well as sparrows, Lincoln’s, Savannah, Fox, and White-crowned.